I only believe it’s being led off the rails but not a full out flaming trainwreck yet.
When the 2nd blank is filled in with film studies, history, or philosophy, one will often find that the factories that use those skills are often non existant or not hiring. This appears to come as a shock to many despite clear data pointing to this in advance.
Well, golly, if they can’t be bothered, I guess they don’t have to pay back those mean ol’ banks whom they agreed to repay.
I mean, personally, I think if you agree to repay money you should do so, but what do I know? My brain is probably addled from being molested by a bank too often.
FYI,
There is a moderately good article up at Slate about this op-ed. Weissmann spent most of the article trash-talking the author, Seigel, more than the august Times itself, however, he has a sweet link to Seigel’s speakers’ bureau webpage: http://www.harpercollinsspeakersbureau.com/speaker/lee-siegel/
A real Man of the People that Seigel. About as non-representative of our 20-something debt indentured young as a man could be, without being dead yet.
Given Seigel’s moderately public profile, how much you want to bet his loans have either been paid, modded & forgiven, or are in litigation limbo right now? He doesn’t look like the kind who’d put himself in jeopardy in order to write one op-ed for the Times. One wonders if the editors already knew that.
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Again:
So yeah, people shouldn’t be punished for not being wealthy. Morality doesn’t hinge on the availablity of leisure time. People who don’t have esoteric knowledge of arcane college finances shouldn’t be financially fucked for decades because of that. This wouldn’t be controversial if you weren’t such a Calvinist. 
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Can you point to an example of someone doing this ? It cannot be all verbal.
Really?
You think an ignorant, uneducated society is better off than one with free access to higher education?
[CITATION VERY FUCKING NEEDED]
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You have internalized the logic of capitalism so completely that it seems unimaginable to you that people could have an ethical framework that doesn’t revolve around free market economics.
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Nah, it doesn’t work like that. There was a very specific claim…
… and if it’s been proven, it should be citeable. You can’t prove it by claiming, “Oh yeah? Prove it isn’t true!”
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It’s less about the “internalized logic of capitalism” (yawn) and more about keeping your word and being an honest person. Radical stuff, I know.
When the 2nd black is filled in with engineering, or other sciences, one will often find that the factories that use those skills are often non existent or not hiring. This appears to come as a shock to many despite being told so repeatedly by those who actually have to navigate the job market, and instead just want to blame people for big “bad degrees” that are still necessary for our culture to function.
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So very arcane. “Here’s some money to pay for classes. When you’re done, pay us back, plus some extra for lending it to you.”
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What metrics do you want? Childhood mortality? Are less dead babies a “better result” than more dead babies? What other metrics might you be interested in?
That’s part of what’s getting folks into trouble - the idea that this is all that a student loan agreement is.
(edit: removed link that had nothing to do with the argument I was making)
Not exactly… being a good Catholic I was raised on the bible… which provides for bankruptcy and debt forgiveness every seven years. Being a good citizen I was raised and educated on the Constitution and the founding of our nation. Here I learned about how our founding fathers made usury illegal and provided for congress to make bankruptcy a lawful action.
No where when I signed up for college loans did I get the truth of the matter:
- This loan is special - you can never discard the debt by law
- This loan is special - you can have up to 70% of your income taken to repay it
- This loan is special - you can have your income tax refund be taken to pay it.
Etc…
It’s hardly a normal loan in any way shape or form. These loans certainly fly in the face of the system our country was founded on.
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That’s not a student loan contract, genius. It’s an agreement for a federal agency to repay part of your student loan.
Can you be bothered to actually understand what you’re linking to? 
yeah, I got carried away there. Try again, maybe this time paying attention to the point.
That’s not what we were discussing. That article talks about more education in general.
It doesn’t talk about this part, and it definitely doesn’t say the state should universally fund college education.
The point in disupute is that society should pay for education because it provides better results.
Education, in the case of child mortality, is shown to provide better results.
If education provides better results for a society, it follows that society should pay for it.
What part of that is something you dispute?
You’ve left out a pretty big section of the contract that says “if you fail to make payments, here are the consequences”. Everybody signed off and it was a happy contract. Many years later, when payments are missed, it’s clear what’s going to happen. There’s no shock, no moral outrage, no betrayal. This is just business.
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Home ownership provides better results for society. Society should pay for your home!
Transportation provides better results for society. Society should pay for your car!
Leisure and relaxation provides better results for society. Society should pay for your trip to Disney World!
